


Flowers on the grave of memories

by aspiratixxn



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-17 23:16:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21601354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aspiratixxn/pseuds/aspiratixxn
Summary: It's always been just them against the world.Discontinued
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Kudos: 8





	1. What does it mean to fall?

**Author's Note:**

> It’s my submission for nacho-bucky's (nacho-bucky.tumblr.com) writing challenge! Prompt: It’s been a long, long time by Harry James and His Orchestra (Kitty Kallen vocals) and also inspired by So this is love by Ilene Woods. I know I probably messed up some of the events detailed in the MCU movies so sorry about that. I also apologize for the inconsistencies in how I write because I wrote this in chunks, so how I wrote depended a lot on my mood oops.
> 
> THIS ALSO GOT REALLY LONG. I was a fool. I’ve spent the better part of summer and fall writing this and I still don’t know how long it’ll be. I think it’ll be around 4-5 parts, as I’m nearing the end right now. Thanks for reading!

Bucky’s always had a steady arm. He’s never trembled once because even the slightest flinch meant taking out someone he didn’t mean to. He’s trained hours and hours at the ranges to achieve this, since the blowback from the guns were anything but subtle. Thankfully, a scope was a lot gentler than your average rifle.

Breathe. Shoot. Reload.

Like every other, this bullet hits the mark perfectly and he watches through the scope as people swarm the fallen. A buzz on his comm: “Barnes, do you copy?”

He rolls his eyes. “Copy.”

“Rendezvous point C. We’ll be waiting at 1400.”

“Copy.”

He’s always been able to hold position for hours but it makes him a little stiff, especially in the cold like this. He quietly packs everything up and sneaks off, steps barely crunching in the snow. He makes sure to sweep up behind him, cover them.

The point is a little forest clearing, the kind where a meadow would be if it was spring. Probably a place for deer and their fawns. Bucky finds his usually companions there, and in the center is Steve, who wears a grimace like it’s a smile. They’re all kind of disheveled but that’s life out here. They’re all due for a shower back at camp, though Bucky’s not really looking forward to it since all that’s there is ice water. If he wanted the good stuff, he’d have to get it himself.

“Bucky!” Steve waves him over. Dumbass, really. Who knows who or what could be watching them right now. But still, the way Steve lights up and his grin, well Bucky can’t help when he smiles back. He tracks around the edge of the clearing and is met with some “well done”s and “good shot”s. Steve gives him half a hug and pulls him towards the truck.

He’s not used to the firm grip, the muscle under the uniform, having lived with a scrawny blond all his life. But he would be lying if he said he didn’t like it. It’s comforting, in a way that Bucky wouldn’t dare pin down. He leans into the touch just a little more, hoping no one will notice as he just laughs with the rest of them and they pile into the truck, rattling off back to base camp.

* * *

This is it. This is the mission, the one that would give them a huge edge if they succeeded. The target was Dr. Zola, a key component of the arms race. They have the tiniest possible window to get on a train barreling a million miles an hour. There’s the signal and the wind bites his cheeks before he’s dropping onto the metal that seems to freeze his fingers even through his gloves. Steve continues forward, determination set in his shoulders. Bucky knows the look. He feels a smile creep on his face at the sight of it, his chest swelling gently like an incoming tide. Not everything has changed.

It’s a blur of gun shots and hiding and suddenly he’s dangling out of the side of the train, clinging to a railing with the whistling in his ears barely heard over the pounding of his heart, his hand outstretched to Steve who has the most panicked face he’s seen in a long time. It doesn’t suit him at all. The strain in his shoulders, the slightest slip of his fingers, the creaking of the railing, none of it registers and then.

He’s falling.

He’s falling and Steve looks smaller and smaller, an echo of his name on those lips. “ ** _BUCKY_** _!!_ ” He grasps, for anything but it all escapes his fingertips; there’s nothing there. Steve fades into a dot and is gone in an instant with the train. The wind bites his cheeks and stings in his eyes and he’s dropping, a smear of grey and white. Bucky Barnes is going to die, but he doesn’t regret it. He doesn’t regret following the skinny blond from Brooklyn like this. _It was worth it_ , he thinks as he falls, _It was worth it with you. I’m glad I had you_.

* * *

Dark. Cold. Pain. Pain, pain, fear. Dark, dark, pain, fear, where, cold, falling, cold, pain, _pain_ , **_pain_**. His thoughts don’t organize, just a continuous stream of feeling. Unable to see, cold in his bones, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts. God it hurts. He can’t move. Is this what it’s like to die? Surely not, surely it would be faster.

He registers an emptiness in his left arm, where the nerves fire but there’s no sensation after but pain. Did he crush it in the fall? Was it completely broken? He doesn’t know. His head hurts, his brain hurts, everything hurts so so so much he just wants to be dead already, to not feel all this. But somehow the pain keeps going, waxing and waning at abrupt times. There’s something, something happening but he can’t figure out what it is. It feels a bit like being stabbed by needles but that can’t be right, needles are injected easily and then they’re out easily. He’s never been bad with shots before.

There are voices, who speak softly. The murmur at the edge of his conscious when he manages to wrangle it, when he manages to see light for just a moment before it becomes too much and overwhelms him. The darkness is more comforting now, it means going unconscious and having a reprieve from whatever is happening around him. It means shelter from the too bright light and white that hurts him so much. There are things creeping at the grey edge though, between the dark and light. Things that lurk and try to consume him if he comes close. He wonders if that’s the universe’s way of telling him he can’t go back to where he used to be.

Bucky Barnes submerges in a wave of frost. He does not resurface.


	2. To die again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meeting the winter soldier and the remnants of one James Buchanan Barnes.

The winter soldier is neat and organized, like beige file cabinets with individual files labeled in square text. Everything is done cleanly, orderly, obsessively. Know only the mission, nothing more and nothing less. Forget no spare detail, not until the report is given. The cabinets sit in an endless white room, blindingly white. Tucked in the corner though, there is a cabinet swathed in black, no handles visible to open. It rattles, at times, but nothing ever comes out and eventually it stops so he doesn’t pay any mind to it.

Except one day it explodes. It bursts open and black sludge pours out, drowning the white floors, crawling up the walls and dousing the room in darkness. The file cabinets are but cubes haphazardly thrown about now. He doesn’t understand, doesn’t know what’s happening but he knows what triggered it. His target, who could dodge and fight. That man, the one who had looked at him like he was the answer to the universe.

“Bucky?”

Was it someone from Before? He doesn’t know and it’s hard to decipher anything in the sludge. It’s a blanket of pain, pain that stings and burns and aches. Instead, he growls and lunges for the throat.

“Who the hell is Bucky?”

It gives him a splitting headache later, that name. _Bucky_. Who in the goddamn fuck is that? He stares, in the lab, out towards the stains on the wall. Pierce comes in and Winter looks up. Though Pierce is speaking, none of it registers. “I know him.” A sigh, exasperated and definitely not willing to listen. But he can’t stop thinking about it. “But. I _knew_ him.”

“Wipe him and start over.”

The sludge in his mind needs to be shoved back, so he can do his work. He takes the mouth guard and bites down hard, even though they’ve just barely started. The chair restraints fling out and around his arms and he feels his heart race, his breath coming in pants and wheezes too fast. The panic shows in his chest’s rise and falls, in his wide eyes though he might try to be brave. The machine rotates, the terrifying prongs sparking in preparation. They latch into his head and they buzz and he _screams_. Screams as the sludge is forced back, even as it wriggles and fights. _No, no! I’ve finally seen him! No!_

The doctors fix it, temporarily every few missions. They use their machines, use their drugs, and force it back into its file cabinet, but it’s sloppy. It bubbles and oozes, trying to see the other cabinets again. They force it back every time and he accepts it, it’s easier than trying to deal with it himself after all. He’s a short-term tool, he knows that.

Each mission is coordinated and scripted, just how it should be. Not like that fight with the curious man. And yet the darkness lurks against the edge of his mind, ready to consume him again. He doesn’t like that. It’s too much of a variable, so he requests that they do the shock treatment just before being sent out on the final mission. Well, perhaps not requests so much as coerces them into it, but the Winter Soldier does not stand for uncertainty. There is only the mission and the mission’s successful completion.

Someone had argued once that this blood lust would come back for him. That someday someone would face him with the same edges and chip at his perfect blade.

It sounds like thunder, but feels like an earthquake and he’s thrown, slamming against the thick glass. If it had been any thinner, perhaps he’d be free falling to his death again. Again? Who? Has he died before? Then he’s pinned under the bars and he shrieks, panic pushing his limbs to action. But as strong as he was made, there are some things he can’t do. Bile rises to his throat and he wildly looks around, looking for something, _anything_. He can’t die here, not yet, not _again_.

And there he is again, that man whose very presence drowns him. He swallows thickly, eyes so wide they might just pop out of his head. He won’t beg for mercy, not like this. He refuses, it’s a fate worse than death to be begging for mercy like so many he’s seen before. And he certainly won’t do it to this man, who’s bloodied appearance makes his heart ache and cry ( _no, Steve, Steve! Steve! I’m right here! Please, Steve!_ ). But the man doesn’t do anything to him, doesn’t try to kill him or leave him there to die. Instead he lifts the bar even an inch up, giving the winter soldier just enough space to dart out, like a cat escaping through a closed door. They wheeze together on the glass, even as everything rumbles around them, collapsing on itself.

The black bursts from the cabinet again, and he’s losing control and he’s there, he’s there punching and punching and punching until there’s blood spattering against the glass. Why didn’t he fight back? Why did he throw away his shield? Why why _why_ _why_ **_why_** \- The black isn’t just covering things now, it’s filling the room. It’s consuming the cabinets, consuming the fabricated memories, consuming the protocols, consuming everything that the winter soldier is and he screams, smashing his fist into the other man’s face one more time. He grinds out each word, “YOU. ARE. MY. MISSION.” A pathetic attempt to regather himself, as if saying that with enough desperation would make it true.

But it hurts. It hurts, hurts, hurts, it’s cold, it’s cold? The winter soldier doesn’t feel cold. His hand is reared back and he can’t breathe, his chest so tight it might just crush his heart and lungs. There’s buzzing in his ears, whispers from someone who shouldn’t exist. It whispers of darkness, cold, fear, pain, loneliness, nostalgia. And what cut through the buzzing, are the quiet words, “So finish it. Cause I’m with you ‘til the end of the line.”

End of the line. With you ‘til the end of the line, end of the line, _end of the line_. Winter is consumed, in murky memories that blur at the edges. Laughter, bright and lovely and _loving_. Touches that are firm and kind and _warm_. Hugs that feel like _home_. He can’t handle this, these aren’t _his_ to know, and he lurches back, terror firing off every nerve. It’s like he’s been doused in ice water, everything tingles and burns and he can’t breathe and-

He needs to move, needs to go because he failed his mission, he _failed_. But his body won’t move, doesn’t want to move. The exhaustion and wounds run bone deep, suddenly weighing his bones, and he can’t make himself move. It’s reflex that grabs the railing as the glass caves and the blond man drops, falling without any resistance. Not even an attempt to reach out for the railing. And Winter watches him.

It’s graceful, in the way that battlefields are. With the still smoldering edges of debris and the man slowly vanishing to a blur of blue and red. The small white water splashes that he sees make something inside of him crumble. Crumple like the warping metal around him.

He swallows.

He lets go.

He falls.

And again there’s that sensation of dying. The room in his mind is completely submerged in black, and the memory sparks. Falling surrounded by blue and grey and white, away from that man, falling away and crying out and absolutely surrounded by the bite of winter chill. This time it’s falling from blue skies, warm sunlight, a few clouds fluffy in the sky. The green of the forest blurs past along with some grey-red-orange pieces.

He takes the dive, executed like an Olympic gold medalist. There’s hardly a sound as he hits the waves at near maximum velocity. It’s cold but not like before. He closes his fist around a mop of wet fabric but for a moment, even though they’re in the water, he feels weighted. Like he can never rise to the surface and his body reacts without his brain, clawing for the surface.

If the dive down was simple, the way up is like dragging himself from the fields of punishment in Tartarus. An unending, cruel punishment to always be pulled down when the goal is the surface. When he breaks, it’s like a baby’s first breath. And he wheezes, as he treads water with the unconscious weight in his arms, looking for a shore.

Nothing looks like a shore, but he blindly chooses what looks to be the closest tree and aims there. None of his movements have the same efficiency as before but they’re still smooth as butter.

It would be easy, to just leave him there to die. He’s meant to die after all, it’s the mission. And yet he doesn’t let go, doesn’t let him fall into the water again and into its dark depths. Why? Why is he rescuing this man? The mission- _The mission doesn’t matter anymore because I’m with him ‘til the end of the line_. Winter stops moving again, bobbing in the water in an almost comic manner. Who was that? Why did it sound so familiar? Why does it ache?

His feet hit the ground and he huffs as he takes the last steps up the shore. The gravel crunches beneath his feet and he drops his luggage with an unceremonious thud. He has to go, he has to hide, he can’t be found like this. The black sludge is half urging him but Winter also can’t risk being found again. They do not treat failures well, and even if he is an elite unit, anything that doesn’t serve its job is dead weight. So he staggers off, into the woods, but it feels like he’s leaving something behind with that man laying on the shore. He swallows the feelings and locks them away, somewhere in the sludge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, find me at aspiratixxn.tumblr.com!


	3. An internal grapple for power

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What it’s like to come back. Or try to anyways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are explicit mentions of blood and violence in this.
> 
> Inspired by nacho-bucky.tumblr.com's writing challenge. Prompt: It's been a long, long time by Harry James and his orchestra, ft. Kitty Kallen vocals. 
> 
> I really took a "snapshot" take on this chapter because that's what civil war looked like to me from Bucky/Winter's perspective. I also had to rewatch civil war for this haha.

New York is really fucking hot during the summer. It’s hot and humid and absolutely disgusting but the winter soldier has fared far worse. Though if anyone asks, he definitely prefers the cold to this awful heat. He’s found a little hole in the wall apartment and through some sneaking around with a fake, he’s managed to put himself down for a lease. Don’t ask where his money comes from, he’ll just cryptically smile and wave you off.

He’s selecting plums, quietly chatting with the farmer when shit hits the fan. The TV blows up with a breaking news report, about a bombing. Normally that wouldn’t even phase him, not with all the bombs they drop on everyone ever in the middle east. But this one catches his attention when they show a flash of his face. His face, which looks hard and vicious and remorseless. Winter’s eyes widen and he’s gone before the farmer even turns back.

Shit. Shit shit _shit shit shit **shit**_. He’s running, slipping through the crowd with practiced ease. That wasn’t him, it wasn’t him! Every little whisper worms its way into his ear as he bursts into his apartment, grabbing his escape back and wrenching open a window. The distance to the next building is a little long but nothing he can’t handle. Of course that’s _the_ fucking moment that mister America himself comes bursting in, tailed by at least two dozen feds. Winter’s not an idiot, it’s much easier to just run than fight at this point. But obviously things don’t always go to plan.

American man proves to be a suitable fighter once more, which makes it easier for Winter to burn through the Kevlar encased men. But the downside is that he’s not being allowed to just take people out, both by American man and the annoying little sludge in his head, which has receded to only covering the room instead of filling it. There’s longing in it, when it whispers _don’t_. _Don’t kill anymore, you don’t have to_.

Don’t have to? The blood drips from his fingers like water. Don’t have to, what a joke.

Whatever, that’s not his fucking problem right now. He darts and dashes, finally making it to another roof top. Even if it does cost him a bit of his ankle’s mobility. It should be straightforward from here but he barely notices the shadow lurking before it tackles him to the ground. He grunts but is scrambling to get up and _run_ because whoever’s chasing him as the reflexes of a fucking cat. Are those ears on his goddamn head? Fuck whatever.

The chase itself is pretty much straight out of a Hollywood movie. Winter manages to pull a sick move when he steals a motorcycle but way too soon (or perhaps not soon enough given the ruckus behind him), all of them have been cornered by the local police of all people. And War Machine but that’s. Irrelevant, really.

* * *

What _is_ relevant is being strapped to a fucking chair and being made to talk to a shrink. Like any average shrink would understand. The conscious in the sludge is inclined to agree. After all, who else understands being out of place and out of time? Who else understands being stripped to the nerves and being molded like putty, being frozen and unfrozen repeatedly, having blood dye your very being? Maybe someone does understand that part. But a government shrink? Doubtful.

Except it’s not a shrink that enters the room. Winter’s eyes widen. Fuck aren’t there cameras for this kind of thing? Shouldn’t someone be watching? If he was feeling caged before, he definitely feels it now. He strains against his bonds but these are much tougher than your average run of the mill leather metal straps. Zemo circles like a vulture, licking his lips and whispering the words with reverence that is undeserved.

“Longing.”

His heart thuds. Longing, for blood they had said. Longing for the rush of a kill, for the terror painting his mark’s faces as they die. _Longing_ , the sludge conscious whispers _, for home. For him. For the warmth of the sun and the sticky sweet ice cream dripping down your chin. You long to be free again._

“Rusted.”

Blood rust, machine rust, the iron smell invades his nose and he grips the arms of the chair, squeezing his eyes shut. _No, no don’t fall for it! Rust like the old garages we used to explore. Rusted like the machines we’d take down together. Rust like the shade of the sun set you’d watch after a mission with him._

“Seventeen.”

A memory surfaces and is torn to shred before he can watch it. _Seventeenth birthday, where you-_

“Daybreak.”

The time for creatures of the night to go back into hiding. Creatures like him, the winter soldier, trained in the cover of darkness with only the cold twinkling of the stars as company. _No, you’re not alone!_ But the black sludge is being forced back, revealing the all too familiar bright white again. The file cabinets uncover slowly, pristine as ever somehow. The words are getting muddled. _The light — dawn —- breakfast —– cranky —- watch —-_

“Furnace.”

It burns, the pain, the cold, it burns through him and he clenches his hands so hard that the arm rest shatters to pieces. He must be baying like a wounded animal right now, but it all feels very far away. He’s being placed in the bright white sterile room again, that _burns_ his eyes, his hands, his chest. _No – warm — winter —- cuddle —– orange —– favorite color —– hold his han—_

“Nine.”

Nine recruits. Nine targets. Nine tests. Nine nein nine nein nine. _No! No —- please —- you’re not —–_

“Benign.”

Blend in, keep your eyes peeled, don’t raise suspicion. Everything must be carried out silently, secretly. Don’t pose a blatant threat. _Not —– threat —- you —–_

“Homecoming.”

Return to us, our greatest creation. Return to your roots, remember who you are. _Home —- Ste — Please —-_

“One.”

It’s only the mission, nothing else matters. One shot. _Ple—-_

“Freight Car.”

The weight of control slams into him and he stops convulsing in his chair, breathing deeply. The room is clean, the sludge once again contained only in a corner. When his eyes open, he is once more the very machine they programmed him to be. He moves mechanically, even as he tears through bindings and concrete and flesh. The flesh that feels so warm under his hands, so invitingly warm. It tears like tissue paper and the ooze of blood is oh so _warm_ and it’s so freeing, to be like this. To tear without worries or cares.

* * *

Winter is confronted and captured once more by the American man, who he’s learned is named Steve. But as soon as that knowledge comes, he’s submerged in darkness again, except this time it’s much like a pool and he’s sinking to the bottom. As much as he tries to scrabble up, he can’t. He can’t reach the surface, where his eyes watch but do not see. They’re not his anymore. Not anymore.

* * *

Bucky Barnes bursts through to the world and gasps for air, gasps for the tastes of the world on his tongue. He gets his first taste in the backseat of an unsuspecting car, squished by the passenger seat. He grumbles about it but puts up with it if only to help Steve, who is chatting with a really pretty blonde. Sharon Carter, his ears hear. Carter, like Peggy. No wonder Steve looks at her so tenderly, she matches the spirit and fierce face of Peggy. Bucky feels his heart burn a bit but he tries to push it aside. Except that moment of weakness is exactly when Winter bursts out the seams again, wrapping his arm around Bucky’s neck and dragging him back down.

* * *

Who is he? Is he James Buchanan Barnes, sergeant of the 107th who fell from a cliff, who drank liquor in the 1940’s and loved? Is he Winter Soldier, mechanically enhanced super soldier who thinks of only the mission and dismisses the dripping wet that permanently stains his hands? Bucky who holds loyalty like a treasure, loves like a flame flickers? Winter who touches everything with a carved dagger, revels in bloodshed? Who is he? He doesn’t know. All he knows is that his body weighs heavily, and that he will fight. For Steve, against Steve, always Steve.

* * *

It takes him a second to recognize that he nearly punched a twelve year old dressed in bright red and blue pajamas. It takes him another to recognize that the twelve year old _stopped his fucking fist_. His metal fist, which dents steel and bone with ease, and it was stopped by a _child_. Maybe he’s losing his touch a bit here. He’s running for a lot of the fight after, throwing some punches but mostly running. The chaos becomes background noise and he sprints, sprints towards the one thing that will make this right. He’s not at fault, not this time, and he has to prove it. He needs to. There’s a bit of a scruff in the plan when miss Russian spy herself confronts them and although they’re both enhanced soldiers, he wouldn’t bet against her for these things. Apparently Steve knows her a lot better than he gave credit for though, and she lets them pass.

* * *

For everything that’s happened, it feels strangely detaching when the truth is revealed. Iron man’s voice is low, almost sticky with grief. _Did you know_. He watches as Steve holds his silence, lip curling in pain. “Yes.” 

Winter has seen that look. Grief, compounded with betrayal. Stark’s mask is on before long and he’s blasting the white beams, and they don’t have time to talk anymore. He loses an arm, but it is not Winter who deals the last blow, instead being thrust aside as Steve pounds his shield again and again into the core of the suit. Lodges it there and takes off running. Sprinting away.

* * *

Steve only calls for a pause when they’re far enough away that the radars can’t catch them anymore. They collapse next to each other, breathing harsh. Steve’s talking, something about breaking someone out, but all Winter, Bucky, can think about is that they’re together again. Together.

And he chooses, by his own will, to leave. He requests asylum and is granted it, generously by the Wakandan king. He apologizes, for everything he’s done. Although T’Challa dismisses it with a wave, the guilt that settles in his stomach is heavy. He chooses to go back into cryofreeze, knowing that he will be away perhaps when Steve needs him most. But it feels like the first real decision he’s made for himself in a very long time and even if he’s being caged again, it’s freeing. He knows that Steve can see it too, with the soft cracked smile he has as he says goodbye to his best friend, his Bucky, again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, find me at aspiratixxn.tumblr.com. Now taking requests! 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading and leaving kudos and comments, I really appreciate it!

**Author's Note:**

> As always, find me at aspiratixxn.tumblr.com.


End file.
